In order to commercially manufacture lithium carbonate having a purity of a predetermined concentration or greater in a commercial view, lithium in a lithium-containing solution needs to be concentrated to an appropriate concentration degree for carbonation, while impurities in the solution are removed.
However, a cost for removing the impurities and concentrating the lithium takes most of the entire cost, and thus research on solving this problem is continuously being made.
Specifically, a technology of removing the impurities and concentrating the lithium by evaporating brine with solar heat has been suggested. However, when the brine evaporation depends on natural evaporation, it takes a long time of one year or more, and thus in order to solve this time problem, a vast evaporation equipment (for example, an artificial pond for the evaporation and the like) is required, and accordingly, a high cost for an equipment investment, an operation, a maintenance, and the like are additionally needed.
In order to replace this natural evaporation, a method of producing lithium carbonate by producing lithium phosphate from brine and then, chemically dissolving it has been suggested. However, since the lithium phosphate is not only known to have very low solubility and thus very difficult to chemically dissolve, but the chemically-dissolved solution also includes lithium in a low concentration, a concentration process through an evaporation is necessarily required.
Accordingly, a new technology replacing the concentration process through evaporation is required to economically manufacture lithium carbonate having a predetermined concentration, but an effective alternative has not been suggested yet.